Center for Humane Technology Pivots to 'Founder-Led' Model Amid Mass Layoffs
AI-generated image · US National Wire
The tech nonprofit is cutting half its non-founder staff and abandoning policy research to double down on the public profile of Tristan Harris.
The Center for Humane Technology (CHT) is slashing its workforce by approximately half of its 16 non-founder employees, as Wired first reported. The layoffs include senior director of strategy Camille Carlton and executive director Julie Guirado.
According to Wired, the organization is abandoning its litigation and policy research functions—work that recently contributed to courtroom victories against social media companies regarding the design of platforms and their impact on children. CHT's board determined that attempting to function simultaneously as a policy think tank and an advocacy group led by co-founder Tristan Harris had stretched the organization too thin.
Moving forward, the board announced that CHT will shift to a "founder-led" strategy. This new focus prioritizes private coordination, targeted briefings, and public education to engage decision-makers and broad audiences. Board chair Premal Shah told Wired that the center is focusing on its core strengths to meet the "accelerated AI risk" currently facing the public.
While the pivot focuses on the founders, former employees told Wired that internal tensions over the organization's direction had simmered for years. Some former staffers described the internal culture as "insanity-inducing" and "frenetic," citing Harris' shifting priorities. Gail Barnes, a former social media strategy advisor for the center, told Wired that the board is discarding work intended to turn Harris' fame into "durable pressure" for institutional change, noting that the organization is betting that the primary constraint on AI progress is a lack of public awareness rather than a lack of institutional leverage.
Founded in 2017 by Harris, Aza Raskin, and Randy Fernando, CHT has operated with an annual budget of roughly $6 million and similar reserves funded by foundations and wealthy families. Harris, a former Google product manager, has recently focused on the risks of advanced AI, appearing in the Netflix documentary *The AI Doc* and calling for congressional intervention to prevent an "AI takeover."